Identity
Identity, as defined by Jonathan Friedman, is positional and can be determined by one’s place in a larger network of relations (36). Live and Become depicts the life of a young, Ethiopian boy who travels across countries in search of his identity. After losing most of his family to famine and disease, Schlomo, his assigned Jewish name, moves to Israel as a replacement child of a mother who had lost her son. As his mother sent him away, she told him to “Go. Live. Become.” But become what? Completely unaware of what this meant, he is soon adopted by a beautiful family. This marks the beginning of his journey to finding his identity. In this essay I will explore the process that Schlomo undergoes to find his identity in a world completely different than what he is accustomed to. Through Schlomo and other examples of lost identity, I will dissect the process of finding an identity through culture, language and education, and religion.
One’s surroundings, environment, and people all play a role in one’s culture. Many immigrants, refugees, and in Schlomo’s case, adopted kids find that they need to assimilate to their new environment. Others find the need to remain loyal to their previous culture, and oftentimes run into problems with this (“Caught between two worlds”). Up until the age of nine, Schlomo knew nothing except a world of famine, disease, violence, and death. The transition to life in a developed nation was quite troublesome for Schlomo. Even after months with his new family, Schlomo still would not eat the dinner that was prepared for him. It took quite some time, and also few adjustments of the family, for Schlomo to feel comfortable enough to speak, eat, and play freely in his own home. Schlomo had dark skin, ...
... middle of paper ...
...t be as simple as finding my identity was. Through Schlomo’s turmoil and strife, I think we can learn many lessons. He never gave up on his true beliefs. When he left his mother he had no idea what “Go. Live. Become” meant, but he figured it out. He became a doctor, a soldier, a father, and a man. Although I feel I have found my identity within the confines of college life, I am still trying to find an identity in my complete life. This I do not intend to find anytime soon.
Works Cited
"Caught between two worlds: the search for cultural identity in lahiri's the namesake" StudyMode.com. 03 2011. 2011. 03 2011 Web.
Friedman, Jonathan. "Properties of Global Systems." Cultural Identity and Global Process. London: Sage Publications, 1994. 36. Print.
Live and Become. Dir. Radu Mihaileanu. Perf. Sirak M. Sabahat and Yitzhak Edgar. Menemsha Films, 2005. Online.
Palmer, Tom G. "Globalization, Cosmopolitanism, and Personal Identity." Ethics & Politics 2 (2003): 1-15. Web.
“Identity cannot be found or fabricated but emerges from within when one has the courage to let go.” (by Doug Cooper.) Some people assume the identity of a person could be changed by the surrounding conflicts. Others think identities may never change. Whatever the truth is, identities are masks with a person’s thoughts and personalities put into them. Sometimes, identities can be lost or redefined. War of the Wall by Toni Cade Bambara and Names/Nombres by Julia Alvarez shows how identities are portrayed in the real world. Both texts involve the loss or redefinition of one’s identity.
In introducing someone most people use a format of giving the person’s name and some correlation of how they know them. In Italian culture; and more so, organized families, people are introduced as a friend of mine or a friend of ours. This is to establish the relationship to “The Family” and how they might be trusted. This does not allow for one’s own identity, but only for their association to, or not to, an affiliation. A person’s autonomy is then lost and only their social identity is known. Personal growth is a constant, although many would love to say they are developed at a certain age, this is not so because development of self and identity is ongoing and ever changing. In formal tradition, I now introduce to you a friend of ours; Mister Tony Soprano from The Sopranos and we will look at his life and personal development in relation with the philosophical format of identity. Kwame Anthony Appiah wrote a book called Ethics of Identity and in this he looks at many philosophers but mainly John Stuart Mill and his lifelong work to define identity and how one is to acquire it.
Families, language, ancestry/birthright, and multicultural identity of self all connects to one’s heritage and identification process by giving the opportunity to self-expression. A writer who goes through the experience of self-expression and realization of identity is Emiene Shija Wright. Wright, the writer of “Say Something in African,” speaks about discrimination and prejudice but most importantly, her culture and how it helps shape her identity. With her writing, Wright exemplifies the way a culture is linked through some traditions and/or traits. She argues that being a part of more than one culture can prepare an individual for interactions that maybe either negative or positive in his/her life. Another writer who deals with identity and self-expression is Rasma Haidri.
Identity is very important in a person’s life. It can induce pride or shame, provide a community or provide a way to distinguish one’s self from others. But, where does this identity come from? It is easy to assume we are who we are because of who raised us, but this is not the entire case. Andrew Solomon, author of “Far from the Tree” introduced two different forms of identity, vertical and horizontal. He defines vertical identity as the attributes acquired and shared by the people we are raised by and horizontal identity as the attributes different from those who raised us, but are shared and acquired through a peer community. These two types of identities generally do not intersect and, depending on the circumstance, one can greatly impact
Gardner, Robert, and Wayne Lavold. "Chapter 9-12." Exploring Globalization. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 2007. N. pag. Print.
Fulcher, James. "Globalisation, the Nation-state and Global Society." The Sociological Review 48.4 (2000): 522-43. Print.
Nilanjana Sudeshna Lahiri, an Indian by descent, was born in London in August 1967, to a Bengali immigrant Indian parents. “Jhumpa” is the nickname easier for the teachers remember his name. The Lahiri family moved from England to Rhode Island when Jhumpa was two years old. Her father was a librarian at Rhode Island University and her mother was a school teacher. At age of seven, Lahiri started to embrace writing about what she saw and felt. While growing up, Lahiri lived two lives: An Indian at home and An American outside of the home. Despite of living most of their life in the western world, Lahiri’s parents called “Calcutta” their home unlike Lahiri who thought Rhode Island as her hometown. Lahiri always felt her family had a different li...
Throughout history, individuals have felt torn between adhering to established social norms and showing their individuality by rising against conformity. In Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” and James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues,” the two main characters Gregor and Sonny are faced with many challenging events that contribute to the development of their identity. The continuous conflicts between individuals’ needs and social and family expectations can impact the development of identity.
“As we journey through life, identity and belonging must be consistently renegotiated.” Each person’s identity goes through a process of stages in order to be fully developed and be a whole identity. Some people needs more time than others to attain a full, whole identity. There are many factors which play a role in sharpens people’s identity such as the environment that the people love in and the experiences that they went through. Undoubtedly, immigrants, especially those form two different cultures, need more time to achieve a stable and whole identity as they become trapped between two cultures, unable to categorize themselves with a particular one. For instance, it is very hard for Asian Americans, especially the first and second generations, to assimilate and adjust in America as they have different culture, traditions and features. This paper will depict how Obaachan in Silver like dust and Pearl in Shanghai Girls defines their identity and belonging during their lives’ journeys.
...d and left with little cultural influence of their ancestors (Hirschman 613). When the children inadvertently but naturally adapting to the world around them, such as Lahiri in Rhode Island, the two-part identity begins to raise an issue when she increasingly fits in more both the Indian and American culture. She explains she “felt an intense pressure to be two things, loyal to the old world and fluent in the new”, in which she evidently doing well at both tasks (Lahiri 612). The expectations for her to maintain her Indian customs while also succeeding in learning in the American culture put her in a position in which she is “sandwiched between the country of [her] parents and the country of [her] birth”, stuck in limbo, unable to pick one identity over the other.
The Globalization Reader. 2011. Fourth Edition. Frank J. Lechner and John Boli, eds. Malden MA: Blackwell Publishing.
In The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri illustrates several factors contributing to an individual’s life, such as the struggle faced by settling immigrant families and their growing second-generation children. Lahiri develops the fundamental idea that the absence of strong roots heavily affects an individual’s identity. This is clearly depicted through Gogol and the conflict he faces with his identity, the central theme and the symbolism found in Gogol’s names.
What is identity? There is a common understanding of identity that is the distinct personality of individuals. Moreover, there is another understanding that the identities are the behavior that helps people to distinguish from others. Whatever the consideration is, identities represent who we are, and people are the combination of different identities. There are many people optimistic, but the number will be decreased while adding the other types of personality. Finally, there is only one person can fit into all the characters. That is the reason for the uniqueness of individuality. What is more, the formation of identities is the result of the surroundings. Andrew Solomon explains in his essay “Son,” that we are born with characteristics. The primary surrounding what people stay in their families where shaped their “vertical identity” that is the transmitted by their parents, such as gender, nationality, and races and those vertical identities are difficult to change. However, not all identities can be stable, Solomon suggests that there are also many “horizontal
The word ‘Diaspora’ is derived from the Greek word ‘Diasperio’ which means to scatter or to distribute. The term originally associated with the Jewish historical experience but today the term has got a more expanded meaning it refers to common ancestral homeland, voluntary or involuntary migration and a sense of marginality in the country of residence. This term cuts of various disciplines such as Political Science, Cultural Studies and Sociology, etc. On the history of globalization, the term ‘Diaspora’ raises the question of acculturation, assimilation, the loss of identity, etc. Diaspora has been a favorite topic in the transnational world of literature for innovative literary outputs in recent years. People who have flown and tried to settle over the distant territories of the world for various reasons have always settled assurance of home and they cannot allow their roots being blown over into fragments of uncertain insecurities on a foreign land. The intellectuals and authors have tried to represent these feelings in diverse ways in diverse writings all over the world. Having been born of educated middle class Bengali parents in London and grown up in Rhodes Island, Lahiri truly portrays her diasporic experiences in her first novel The Namesake.